OpenStack Hackathons

The clock is ticking. One teammate whiteboards while another digs through documentation. The best idea wins, but everyone learns. OpenStack Hackathons bring together hundreds of technologists in a supportive learning environment to practice their skills with the latest cloud tools.

OpenStack Hackathons bring together hundreds of technologists in a supportive learning environment to practice their skills with the latest cloud tools. Hackathons are hard work to run, requiring 3-6 months of planning, but the value of a hackathon is multifold:

Help app developers build knowledge and skill for cloud-native applications

Develop new relationships and discover new talent in your local community

Practice collaboration and working as a team across various roles

Understand the value of open source and how to participate in the open source community

For team members of all roles––be it appdev, devops, UX, sysadmin, or network engineering––hackathons are a great way to rapidly learn in a fun and competitive environment.

Previous Hackathon Events

OpenStack App Hackathon Guadalajara

OpenStack App Hackathon: Taiwan 2016

Host An OpenStack Hackathon

Are you interested in hosting an OpenStack App Hackathon in your area?

First, get in touch with your local user group or community ambassador to see if there are already events happening and how you can get plugged in. You can reference the list of user groups and ambassadors to find one near you. OpenStack App Hackathons can require quite a bit of work to organize, so it’s ideal for user group leaders to help organize them to collaborate across organizations and leverage existing local infrastructure, such as attendee lists and regular sponsors.

Next, review the event guidelines. OpenStack App Hackathons are non-commercial events and we expect them to run in accordance with the spirit of the community. This means making reasonable efforts to open the events to anyone in the community who wants to help organize, attend, or sponsor, regardless of affiliation.

FAQ

Yes, of course, we are a worldwide community! Hackathons are a great way to expand your community and/or improve the skills of your staff. There are two common Hackathon formats:

Community (large) hackathons: Grow the cloud app development skills of your regional community. These events bring together hundreds of participants from universities, companies, governments and other open cloud supporters.

Internal organization (small) hackathons: Train internal teams on OpenStack infrastructure and improve team collaboration through company-wide hackathons. Attendees will walk away with new knowledge about open infrastructure tools and cloud native applications.

How do I decide what size event to do?

If you are: arranging sponsorship for a dedicated event, planning to charge for attendance, expecting more than 50 people, planning a press release or any media involvement ... plan on doing a large hackathon.

We can connect you with community members (like Victor in the video below) who have run hackathons and can provide advice and guidance:

Who attends a Hackathon?

Hackathons are for everyone! It takes a variety of roles to take a concept from ideation to production, and hackathon attendance reflects that. Common attendees are network engineers, system administrators, developer operations, application developers, and usability experts, but there’s no limit to who you might want to invite or who will attend.

Hackathon at the prestigious Tecnológico de Monterrey:

Taiwanese Universities Hackathon:

How can the OpenStack Foundation help?

Once an event is approved by the Hackathon Working Group, the Foundation provides support including training videos/materials/graphics, advisory sessions, and potentially sponsorship depending on size and scope of the event. The Foundation will also introduce you to companies in the OpenStack ecosystem who are eager to support hackathons through prizes, venues and catering.

Hackathon Toolkit This toolkit will give you all of the answers on how to host a successful OpenStack Hackathon. As a hackathon organizer, you will lead a team of dedicated community volunteers who are inspired by learning the latest cloud skills. Hackathons are hard work to run and require at least 3-6 months of preparation and planning. This document will provide you with helpful tips, best practices and general information needed in order to run a successful hackathon event.

The OpenStack Foundation has created an official OpenStack Hackathon logo and digital assets to be used for all OpenStack Hackathons.
For both trademark and legal reasons, all official OpenStack Hackathons are required to use these assets in all event
communications, printed materials, signage, and website presence. To request your official OpenStack Hackathon logo and branding
kit, please send an email to [email protected]